


Dear Steve,

by nixutree



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Goodbyes, Letters, M/M, Marvel Universe, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23787778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nixutree/pseuds/nixutree
Summary: "I want to be with someone who has a shared life experience."--James Buchanan Barnes had always loved Steve Rogers. For as long as he could remember. With the threat of Thanos over, Bucky had hoped that he could say it to him. However Steve chose another life... one without him. So Bucky writes a letter, one explaining himself and how he'd loved Steve first.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Dear Steve,

**Author's Note:**

> This is an older piece of work, from July 2019. ENDGAME spoilers.

Dear Steve,

I hope that you had a good life with Peggy. We haven't really been able to talk since you came back and to be honest with you, I don't think I can talk to you anymore. 

Why, you ask? Well... I wanted to tell you something. I was going to tell you, after a near god damn 90 years. It's the biggest and only secret I have ever owned. 

We have been friends since we were thirteen. Remember how we met? You were being pushed around by a much stronger and bigger kid and I stepped in to help you. Since then we were best friends. You were small, a small little kid with the heart of a lion. Courageous, a real fighter. You always put up a fight.  
You wanted to enlist in the army with me, fight with me for America. You were rejected countless times but I remember you were so determined to get in that you did in the end. You got the body you wanted thanks to a serum, one that made you stronger, faster, a body that let you finish the fights. 

You still had the heart of a lion. You still do. Even if sometimes you don't think you do, if you think you're a coward, I never thought of you as one. Ever. Reckless, yes. Strong-headed, yes. Weak, never. How could I think of you as a weak coward? I never wanted you to join the war though. Not because you were weak... but because I realized something. 

You then met Peggy Carter, a brainy, skilled girl from England. You fell in love with her. I saw it in your eyes. Peggy was a very pretty woman, beautiful even. I could have seen why you fell for her, had I not realized something else. 

You see, long before you met her, you already had someone loving you. 

That someone was me. 

I loved you first. 

I loved you first, Steve. I loved your sparkling blue eyes, your golden hair as it shone in the sunlight, your quirky little laugh, your smile. You were so beautiful, so wonderful. The star of my life. I was just too afraid to say it. 

I don't think you knew but when I was still in the Howling Commandos, I carried a picture of you in my left sleeve. I lost it when I fell off the freight train. Same as I lost my arm. _That_ was my most treasured possession, something I never wanted to lose. I was always thinking of you, hoping you were safe somewhere. 

I've loved you for exactly 88 years. 

I've always wanted to kiss you. To hold you. To cuddle away the dark and lonely nights. Of course, I never had that ending. You loved her. You'd never love me. In that way at least. 

That was what I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you how much I loved you, how long I've been sickeningly, insanely in love with you. 

I wish, that instead of hugging you on the day you returned the Infinity Stones, I'd kissed you. Perhaps you would have stayed. Or perhaps not. Either way, I wish I had. I just wish, that when we were younger, we'd lived in an age where I couldn't have been killed or shunned by everyone for simply loving you. I wish we'd grown in this one. 

Or at least I wish you'd come back. 

You did... eventually. But by come back, I mean... I wish you'd decided to live a life with me by your side. Because I would have come back. I would have. But you didn't. You're going to die sooner or later. You're officially in the body of a 100 year old. I'm still trapped in the body of a 30 year old. I'm trapped. That's what I am. I'm trapped with no one here. And I don't want to see you go. But you will. I'm going to live another 60 or 70 years. I'm going to have to live without you... again. 

I'll say one last thing before I end this letter off. 

We gave ourselves a promise. That promise was "With you until the end of the line." We both said it. I meant it. I really did. 

I can see now that you didn't. You went to live with her and left me. You left me Steve. It broke my heart beyond repair. 

And that's why I can't talk to you again. You won't be on this Earth's surface for much longer anyways. I just wish this whole thing was irreversible. I wish you had meant that promise... 

The one who loved you first, and will still love you even after all of this... But I guess I have to let you go. Maybe I'm already starting to. 

Bucky.

Goodbye. 

**Author's Note:**

> (July me)  
> This honestly broke my heart writing this. I wish that Steve hadn't gone off with Peggy as he replaced the Infinity Stones, it was completely out of character. I was really wishing he'd stayed with Bucky. You can just tell that Bucky was insanely in love with Steve... I cried writing this. It was an extremely painful hour of writing, literal torture for my poor Stucky loving heart. I hope you didn't cry too much while reading.


End file.
